The Trail: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 1)

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  “I'm sure the upper brass weren't pleased when they found out,” Julian says.

  Lenara chortles. “To say the least. . . but I think in the end they were grateful. They wouldn't have sent Nulat and her team to Romulus otherwise.”

  “Romulus, really?”

  “That's amazing,” Ezri says, resting a hand on Lenara's wrist.

  “It's a huge honor for Nulat and the entire family.” Lenara pinches her napkin between her fingers, rolling the fabric back and forth in what has to be a soothing manner. “And to be quite honest, she needed some good news then.” She looks up at Ezri. “The week before Nulat got her orders to go to Romulus, the Symbiosis Commission rejected her application.”

  “Oh, well, you know that doesn't mean it's over. Jadzia flunked out of the initiate program—”

  “They wouldn't even look at her application. They rejected it outright without giving her a chance. All because. . . all because she has Gandres syndrome.”

  “The developmental disorder?” Julian asks.

  Lenara nods. “No one who has it has ever been joined before. We all thought that was because there were never any qualified candidates, but Nulat. . . She graduated with distinction, and a third-year at the Academy was accepted before her.”

  “Is she even capable of being joined? I know Gandres doesn't affect isoboramine lev—”

  “Julian!” Ezri scolds in a whisper.

  “It's fine,” Lenara says. She looks to Julian as one scientist to another. “We have no reason to believe she'd reject a symbiont, but that's what the initiate program is supposed to figure out. Nulat was never given the chance.”

  “That's horrible.” And Julian would know. Or, at least, Jules would. “I'm sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ezri squeezes her arm. “It's the Symbiosis Commission's loss.”

  “It's a loss to all of us.” Lenara closes her eyes. “When I think of all the experiences, all the lives the Kahn symbiont won't have because of some outdated medical bias. . .” When she opens her eyes, they are free of tears yet somehow shining with determination. “The entire point of joining is for the symbiont to gain new experiences, but not a single symbiont alive today knows what it is like to live as Nulat does. We only join symbionts with the most successful Trill—people who for the most part have never known what it's like to struggle or to have people immediately doubt them because of the way they were born. I mean, what kind of society are we building if our one source of continuity from one generation to the next is people who've had everything handed to them on a latinum platter?”

  “Well, when you put it that way. . .” Ezri trails off.

  Lenara sips at her wine. “And that's why my family left Trill.”

  “What?” Julian gasps. “All of you?”

  “Yes, of course. We couldn't stand to be a part of that culture any longer.”

  “So you just packed up and moved? Couldn't you have circulated a petition or something?”

  “That's not how things work on Trill,” Ezri explains. “Our word for 'dissident' translates roughly to 'expatriate.' Seriously.”

  “Love it or leave it?” Julian asks.

  “And take your whole family with you,” Ezri finishes.

  “Will the rest of your family be joining you on the station?”

  “No,” Lenara says. “Everyone except for Nulat is on Andor.”

  “Are you going to be moving there?” Julian asks. “To be with them?”

  “I want to, but I can't.”

  “Work?”

  “No. I. . . This is going to sound incredibly morbid of me, but I can't move to Andor because if I should die there, the Kahn symbiont will be returned to the Symbiosis Commission. And neither of us want that.” She inhales deeply. “I've decided to will the symbiont to Nulat. I know I'm not much older than her, but if I were to die before her. . . there's no one I know more worthy of being joined.” She smiles slightly. “Although, I must admit, I'm likely biased.”

  “That's insane,” Ezri laughs.

  “It's completely ludicrous, I know.”

  “I mean, it's you.”

  “Me. Of all people! Not in a million years did I imagine I would be taking refuge on a Bajoran space station so the Federation can't take custody of my symbiont.”

  “Hey, I never thought I'd have a symbiont for the Federation to take.”

  “Yeah.” Lenara grins. “It's funny how things work out.”

  Ezri ducks her head, hiding the wide, blushing smile on her face. Julian sees it anyway, which sends a sharp, twisting cramp to his stomach—growing pains marking his slow transformation into a cuckold, he assumes. He's about to head back up to the bar to get another drink—if only to have Quark validate his pervading sense of dread—when his commbadge chirps.

  He taps the badge. “Bashir.”

  “It's Jake. Kasidy needs you. She's in her quarters.”

  “I'll be there soon.” Julian gets up from the table. “Excuse me. Duty calls.”

  He all but runs to the turbolift, slowed by Odo's voice in his ear: “No running on the Promenade!” and “Are they dying? No? Then you can walk like everyone else.”

  At least, Julian hopes Kasidy isn't dying. He imagines Jake would have the good sense to have Kasidy beamed to the medical bay immediately if she or her unborn child were in serious danger, but you can't really anticipate how someone will act in a life-or-death situation.

  Julian's faith in Jake's emergency preparedness falters when he arrives in the habitat ring and faintly smells smoke coming from the Sisko-Yates' quarters, along with hearing a woman groan, “It burns!”

  Good god! Julian punches in his security override, covering his nose and mouth with his shirt, ready to pull Kasidy and Jake from the inferno swallowing their home. Of course, when the door swishes open, he finds not a disaster area but a very dirty kitchen, ingredients and pots and pans strewn everywhere. In the corner, Jake scrapes the burnt-on mess off a skillet into the replicator's recycling platform. His step-mother is nowhere to be seen.

  “What happened?” Julian asks. “Where's Kasidy?”

  Jake gives a long-suffering sigh. “She got pepper juice in her eye. She's trying to flush it out in the bathroom.”

  Julian crosses the room and knocks on the bathroom door. “Kasidy, it's Dr. Bashir. May I come in?”

  The door opens and Kasidy staggers out, her left eye red and puffy and now dripping with water. “I feel like my face is falling off.”

  “We can't have that, can we?” He gently takes Kasidy by the elbow, leading her to the couch. She (consciously or unconsciously) picks the cushion not bearing Captain Sisko's butt imprint to sit on. Once she's settled, Julian nudges Jake away from the replicator and orders, “Whole milk. In a shot glass,” which he has Kasidy place snugly over her eye, leaning her head back, allowing the casein in the milk to neutralize the capsaicin from the peppers.

  Wiping her face with the back of her shirtsleeve, Kasidy reclines on the sofa, sighing. “Thanks, Julian. I'll have to remember that for next time.”

  Jake nearly drops a newly ruined skillet, his eyes wide in horror at the prospect at of a “next time.”

  “About that,” Julian says, “as your doctor, I'd recommend holding off on the cooking. At least for the time being.”

  “Why? Could it be bad for the baby?”

  “No. You're just really bad at it.” Jake snorts as Kasidy playfully swats at Julian. “Hey! If that's the kind of thanks I get for sound medical advice, I'll leave.”

  Kasidy rolls her eyes. “Go on, get. You don't want to leave Dax and Dr. Kahn waiting.”

  “That's right!” Jake says. “You're supposed to be having dinner with Ezri and her widow tonight. Sorry. I wouldn't've called you over if I'd remembered.”

  “It's all right, it's. . .” Julian furrows his brow. “How do you two even know about that?” Stepmother and stepson share an awkward, frantic look across the living room. “Wait, did Ezri tell you about dinner? What
did she say? Was she excited? Did she say anything about Len—”

  “Whoa,” Jake interjects, waving his hands in front of his chest. “I just heard it from Nog.”

  “Nog? Hows does Nog know?”

  Jake shrugs. “Small station. News travels fast.”

  “Right. And you, of course, had to tell Kasidy.”

  “No,” she says from the couch. “Lysia told me this afternoon.”

  “Lysia? The jumja vendor?” Julian shakes his head. “Does everyone know?” Julian takes their tightlippedness as an affirmative. He pauses, taking a breath, centering himself before he has an existential meltdown in the middle of what is, for all intents and purpose, a house call. “Was there anything else you needed, Captain?”

  “No, I'm good now. Thank you.”

  “Right. You're welcome.” He heads for the door. “Come down to sickbay tomorrow morning once the inflammation has gone down and we'll make sure there isn't any physical damage to the eye.” He bids them farewell and hustles his way down to Quark's. Ezri and Lenara are, of course, long gone.

  –

  “Thank you for walking me home,” Lenara says, keying open her front door.

  “It's nothing,” Ezri says. “I know how easy it is to get lost on this station.” The door opens and Lenara enters. Against her better judgment, Ezri follows her. “My first night here I spent two hours wandering around looking for my quarters. And that was after living here for six years as Jadzia. . . I ended up falling asleep in a cargo bay.” Her hands fidget behind her back. “It was a confusing time.”

  Lenara smiles at her in a way Dax has never seen. “Sounds like it.”

  “It's still a confusing time, really. I get spacesick, you know. . . But you probably don't want to hear about me puking. . . And now I'm just bringing more attention to the puking. I should. . .” Ezri looks back at the door. “I should go.” She backs away slowly. “Good night,” she adds in a pathetically squeaky voice.

  “Ezri, wait.”

  “I should go. I have to—”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Is it that you still love me and want to tear my clothes off right here, because. . .” Lenara looks anywhere but at Ezri. “Oh, boy.” Ezri takes a big step back, bumping into the bulkhead. “I need to—”

  “There are dozens of non-aligned planets where I could be free of the Symbiosis Commission, but I chose this station because. . . because I was hoping there might still be something left between us.”

  Ezri snorts, hurt still four years and one death later. “Now that you don't have anything left to lose?”

  Lenara looks her straight in the eye. “From where I'm standing, I have everything to gain.”

  Ezri surges forward, pointing an angry finger in Lenara's face. “That's not fair!” Her chest heaves. “You can't—you can't say something like that and expect me not to fall into your arms!”

  Lenara places her hand on top of Ezri's, lowering the shaking finger from her face. “Dax. . .” Propelled by muscle memory, their fingers entwine.

  “I'm not. . .” Ezri says, quiet now. “I'm not Jadzia. I'm not Torias.”

  “I know.” Lenara leans down, pressing her forehead against Ezri's. The height difference is new, but the gesture's the same. “And I'm not Nilani. And I'm not the same Lenara that Jadzia knew.”

  “So much has changed, but we're still. . .” Ezri raises her head to look up at Lenara, dragging her nose along Lenara’s upper lip.

  She can feel Lenara shiver. Lenara steps closer, nuzzling her nose against Ezri's cheek.

  A billion Terran butterflies take flight in Ezri's stomach. Fearful of what that might mean, she pulls away. “I have a boyfriend.” She backs away. “I have a boyfriend.” She's almost to the door. “I have a boyfriend.” Maybe if she says it enough times, it'll matter. “I have a—” The door opens behind her and she backs right into. . . “Julian!”

  “Ezri, I was just looking for—”

  Ezri squeaks like a Cardassian vole before taking off at full speed down the corridor and away from Julian and Lenara. She doesn't really know where she's running, only that she shouldn't be running to begin with. (“Shut up, Odo,” she mutters to herself.) She somehow finds herself in front of Kira's cabin, proceeding to ring the bell at least a dozen times in the span of twenty seconds.

  “Come in!” Kira hollers. The door slides open, revealing the colonel wrapped in a towel, her hair wet. She gives Ezri a once-over. “Kahn?”

  Ezri nods furiously, stepping into Kira's quarters. “She. . .”

  “What?”

  “She wants me.”

  “And you want her?”

  Ezri gives a high-pitched whine.

  Kira fixes her with one of those no-nonsense Bajoran militia-woman looks that Ezri finds more than a little intimidating. “You know I'm not the person you need to be talking to.”

  “I know, I know. I need to talk to Julian.” She gives Kira the Tobin-perfected puppy dog eyes (which, admittedly, work much better on this host than any other). “But do I have to do it tonight? ”

  Kira, as predicted, caves. “I guess not. But you have to do it eventually.”

  “I know, but tonight, couldn't I just stay here? We could camp out in the living room and braid each other's hair and talk about. . . interstellar politics? We hardly get to spend any time together anymore.”

  Kira sighs. “Fine.”

  “Thank you.” Ezri flops on the couch. “It'll be great.”

  Kira runs a hand through her still-wet hair. “Be honest; are you staying here to keep yourself from going to Lenara?”

  Ezri's visage transforms into one of utmost solemnity. “If I try to leave, sit on me.”

  Chapter 2: Agony that Can Cut Like a Knife... Ah, Well, Back to My Wife

  In the second trimester of her pregnancy, Kasidy has taken to going for long walks around the habitat ring and through the Promenade, perhaps keeping an eye on her husband's realm while he's away. But Ezri doesn't like to speculate. Or, rather, other people don't like Ezri to speculate. Apparently, it can be unnerving. Having been unnerved often enough, Ezri respects their wishes. When she joins Kasidy on her daily sojourns, she keeps the psychoanalyzing to herself, careful not to infringe on Kasidy's relaxation. Ezri knows firsthand how stressful pregnancy can be. She can't even begin to imagine how having the father of your child gone—gone and living outside of time—compounds that stress.

  For the most part, Kasidy has managed well, taking comfort in more time with Jake, but how much of her apparent ease is Captain Yates-Sisko putting on a brave face for her men is anyone's guess. Ezri can see the tension in Kasidy's gait as they near the Bajoran shrine. She imagines Kasidy is readying herself for a little pious Bajoran gawking at the Emissary's wife, but what they come to see is much more, well, Bajoran.

  A crowd of two dozen or so worshippers kneel in prayer just outside the shrine, while a vedek burns a scroll etched with Kasidy's likeness.

  “What the hell?” Kasidy mutters.

  As the last of the scroll turns to ash, the gathered Bajorans begin chanting in their ancient tongue, “May the fires of Bajoran lightning cleanse the Emissary's wife of her illness,” over and over again, increasing in volume and frequency until silenced by the banging of a gong.

  Kasidy cups her hands around her mouth and yells across the Promenade, “I'm not sick!”

  There's a cacophony of murmurs amongst the Bajorans (Ezri swears she hears someone say, “It worked!”) before the vedek steps forward. “We are pleased to hear this, Captain. Many members of the congregation were concerned about your well-being after Dr. Bashir was called to your quarters last night.” Apparently, station gossip reaches even the clergy.

  “I'm fine. I just got pepper juice in my eye while I was cooking.”

  “Ah. I did not know you enjoyed cooking.”

  “I don't and I'm honestly not very good at it, as Jake will tell you. But last night, I thought I'd give it a try. Get some of Ben's food s
mells back in our quarters again. It didn't really work out too well.”

  “Perhaps next time.” The vedek nods and rejoins the congregation.

  Kasidy watches them warily. “I don't think I'll ever get used to that.”

  “Still a little unnerved about being a religious icon's wife?” Ezri asks.

  “A little. I know they mean well, but it's so strange being revered by people you've never met.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I guess you'd know, huh?”

  “I never had it as bad as you do; no one's ever burned an effigy in my honor. But I know the disconnect between how they perceive you and how you perceive yourself can be daunting.”

  “But it does get better?”

  “In time. I think the best thing you can do is get to know the Bajorans on the station better, try to understand where they're coming from and show them who you really are. That's what helped me adjust to knowing everyone Jadzia knew.”

  “Speaking of that. . .” Kasidy looks across the Promenade at the jumja stick cart, where Lenara is waiting to be served.

  “Oh god.” Ezri hides her face behind her hands. “Does everyone know about that?”

  “I'm sure there's at least one person on the station who Morn hasn't told.”

  “How much did he tell you?”

  “Enough to know that you should be talking to Julian instead of me right now.”

  “I know. I will. I just. . .” She wants to say she wishes Ben was here right now, because he'd know what to do, but in her head that sounds incredibly selfish and insensitive. “I need the right time.”

  “Well, there he is,” Kasidy says, nodding towards Julian as he walks around the jumja stick cart, all but glaring at Lenara.

  “And there they are,” Ezri says, tilting her head towards the Bajoran congregation.

  They each take a deep breath, square their shoulders, and take off into the vast wilderness of emotionally mature conversations.

  –

  “Julian, we need to talk.”

  That's really all she need say. Every prophecy of doom he's dreamt up in his head since Lenara came on the station is confirmed by Ezri's single uttered cliché.